Copyright 2001 FDCHeMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Federal Document Clearing House Congressional
Testimony
June 20, 2001, Wednesday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 1880 words
COMMITTEE:SENATE FINANCE
HEADLINE: TRADE PROMOTION
AUTHORITY
TESTIMONY-BY: JOHN SWEENEY,
PRESIDENT,
AFFILIATION: AFL-CIO
BODY: June 20, 2001
Testimony of
John J. Sweeney President
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
Before the Senate Finance Committee on Proposed Fast Track
Legislation
Chairman Baucus, members of the Committee,
I am glad to have the opportunity to talk with you today on behalf of the
thirteen million working men and women of the AFL-CIO about proposed fast track
legislation.
How the Congress chooses to delegate trade
negotiating authority to the executive branch will have an enormous impact on
the content of new trade agreements, as well as on the process of negotiating
these agreements. Our members recognize that their jobs, their wages, and their
communities have been profoundly affected by past trade agreements, and they
want their voices heard as these important decisions are made.
Today, our country finds itself in the middle of a heated debate over
the rules and the institutions of the global economy. Ordinary citizens from all
walks of life are educating themselves, forming new alliances, and sometimes
even taking part in street demonstrations, as they conclude that the global
community needs a dramatic change in trade, investment, and development policies
if we are to build a global economy that truly works for working families - here
in the United States and around the world.
These
ordinary citizens reject the status quo of growing global inequality, persistent
poverty, financial and political instability, egregious human rights abuses, and
environmental degradation.
And it should come as no
surprise that American workers reject trade proposals that ignore continued job
loss at home. Mr. Chairman, we have lost almost half a million manufacturing
jobs since the first of the year. These outcomes are not inevitable; they result
from the rules and institutions we put in place. The Congressional debate about
fast track legislation is a crucial starting point to begin addressing these
serious problems.
Last week, Congressman Phil Crane
introduced a fast track bill called the "Trade Promotion Authority Act of 2001,"
H.R. 2149. Astonishingly, Mr. Crane, with the support of the Republican
leadership of the House of Representatives, chose to completely ignore the
debate that has raged in the halls of Congress, and on the streets of Seattle,
Quebec, and Washington, D.C. over the last several years - a debate about how to
reverse some of the devastating impacts of unchecked globalization on workers,
on family farmers, and on the environment.
Instead of
acknowledging and correcting the failures of current policies, Mr. Crane's bill
simply offers more of the same, and would send our negotiators to the table with
virtually the same set of instructions that produced today's global inequities.
In fact, H.R. 2149 represents a giant step backwards, even from the flawed fast
track rejected by the Congress in 1997 and 1998.
Even
many in the business community now acknowledge that our trade policies must
address the crucial issues of labor and environment, although we are far from
consensus on precisely how to do so effectively. And polls consistently show
that a huge majority (between 75% and 95%) of the American people believe our
trade agreements should include workers' rights and environmental standards. But
H.R. 2149 does not even mention workers' rights and environmental standards, not
as negotiating objectives, not as ancillary issues to be considered, certainly
not as what they ought to be: key national priorities.
This fast track bill lists four overall objectives and ten "principal
negotiating objectives." It offers considerable detail and an ambitious agenda
for our negotiators on issues as diverse as market opening, trade in services,
investment rules, intellectual property rights, and agriculture. It instructs
our negotiators as to precisely what kinds of enforcement mechanisms they ought
to seek with respect to protecting intellectual property rights: "accessible,
expeditious, and effective civil, administrative, and criminal enforcement
mechanisms."
Yet in 52 pages, this bill never so much
as mentions workers' rights or environmental protections. It also fails to
acknowledge many of the concerns that have been raised by development, labor,
and religious groups with respect to negotiations on services, intellectual
property rights protection, and investment.
The only
place in the bill where labor and environmental provisions could conceivably be
included is in a section titled, "Other Presidential Objectives." The President
may include in a trade agreement an issue not explicitly mentioned in the
principal negotiating objectives, so long as it is (1) directly related to
trade, (2) consistent with the sovereignty of the United States, (3) trade
expanding and "not protectionist," and (4) does not prevent a country from
changing its laws in a way consistent with "sound macroeconomic development."
These four constraints do not apply to any of the
principal negotiating objectives, so they must be designed precisely to limit
the President's ability to negotiate meaningful labor and environmental
provisions.
Two of the four constraints ("directly
related to trade" and the one concerning "sound macroeconomic development") were
also included in the 1997 and 1998 fast track bills. But two constraints are
new: requirements that provisions be consistent with sovereignty and trade
expanding (similar to language in President Bush's Trade Agenda). It is worth
noting that H.R. 2149 does not require that negotiations on investment
provisions in new trade agreements also be "consistent with U.S. sovereignty,"
even though many legitimate concerns have been raised about the impact of NAFTA's Chapter 11 on U.S. environmental, public health, and
labor regulations.
And the requirement that "other
objectives" be achieved in a way that is "trade expanding and not protectionist"
appears to be an attempt to preclude the use of trade sanctions to enforce
workers' rights and environmental standards. This takes viable enforcement
mechanisms off the agenda before we even sit down at the negotiating table.
Congress should reject this lopsided approach.
H.R.
2149 also constructs additional procedural hurdles that apply only to these
"other objectives." The Crane bill requires the president to engage in
additional consultations with Congress and advisory committees before he starts
to negotiate provisions on labor and the environment, and those consultations
must address how any such provisions will comply with the four limitations laid
out above.
Unlike the 1997 fast track bill, H.R. 2149
contains no positive goals with respect to promoting respect for workers' rights
or supporting the work of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
While these previously proposed provisions were far from
adequate, it is remarkable that this bill does not even make a pretense of
addressing these concerns. Certainly, this bill offers the President no guidance
whatsoever in terms of laying out a positive agenda with respect to these
important issues. And this bill places the President under absolutely no
obligation to demonstrate any progress with respect to labor and the
environment, in contrast to the "principal negotiating objectives."
The lack of any positive agenda in this fast track bill to
improve the protection of workers' rights is simply reinforced by President
Bush's budget. President Bush proposes slashing in half the funding the United
States allocated in the year 2000 for international labor initiatives, including
ILO programs to prevent child labor and promote respect for core workers'
rights.
The 1997 fast track bill offered some
non-binding "guidance for negotiators" with respect to domestic U.S. policy
objectives. It instructed negotiators to "take into account" domestic
objectives, "including the protection of health and safety, essential security,
environmental, consumer, and employment opportunity interests, and the law and
regulations thereto." Given the concerns raised over ongoing investment and
services negotiations and the unwelcome outcomes of past agreements, this
language needs to be strengthened, expanded, and made binding on negotiators.
Instead, H.R. 2149 leaves it out altogether, signalling to our negotiators that
trade negotiations do not need to take these issues into account.
All in all, this bill is an insult to the millions of
Americans whose lives have been adversely affected by current globalization
policies and an affront to those who have struggled to come up with constructive
solutions to complex policy problems.
The AFL-CIO
believes that any trade negotiating authority must require the inclusion of
enforceable workers' rights and environmental standards in the core of all new
trade agreements.
New trade agreements must ensure that
all workers can freely exercise their fundamental rights and require governments
to respect and promote the core labor standards laid out by the ILO.
Workers' rights and environmental standards must be
covered by the same dispute resolution and enforcement provisions as the rest of
the agreement, and these provisions must provide economically meaningful
remedies for violations. Monetary fines modeled on the NAFTA labor side
agreement or the Canada-Chile agreement are inadequate and have proven an
ineffective means of enforcement. An agreement that does not meet these
principles must not be considered under Fast Track procedures.
It is not sufficient simply to revise the list of negotiating
objectives to include workers' rights and environmental protections. Workers'
rights have been among our negotiating objectives for more than 25 years, with
very little progress being made.
Congress must also
ensure that ordinary citizens have access to negotiating texts on a timely
basis, and that negotiators are accountable to both Congress and the public as
to whether mandatory negotiating targets are being met.
Trade agreements must not undermine public services or public health,
nor allow individual investors to challenge domestic laws. Trade authority must
delineate responsibilities for investors, not just rights, and must not require
privatization or deregulation as a condition of market access.
Trade negotiating authority must also instruct U.S. negotiators that a
top priority is to defend and strengthen U.S. trade laws. Fast-tracked trade
agreements must not prevent our government from implementing national policies
to promote a strong manufacturing sector.
I commend
Chairman Baucus and this Committee for scheduling a markup on the Jordan Free
Trade Agreement next week. As you know, I share the view that this agreement
marks an important advance in that it incorporates enforceable workers'rights
and environmental protections in the core of a trade agreement, under the same
dispute resolution as all the other provisions. I urge the Finance Committee to
act expeditiously to pass it without any amendments, and to resist any attempts
to undermine or weaken its provisions with executive actions such as side
letters or memoranda of understanding.
I look forward
to your questions and to working with you on these important issues in the
months to come.
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